The official student exchanges, supported by both states, were the result of Romania growing economically and politically closer to [the Third Reich] during the second half of the 1930s, as a consequence of Romania’s need to export its grains—for which Germany was the main market at that moment—but also because of potential security threats and territorial claims from Hungary or the Soviet Union.

The student exchanges were initiated in 1935 through a German-Romanian agreement, which stipulated that the Third Reich had to offer German currency at preferential price (the so-called advantageous currency) to at least 650 Romanian students to study [there]. This agreement led to a considerable increase in the number of Romanian students enrolled in [the Third Reich’s] universities.

In 1934 and 1935, there were three to four hundred Romanian students per year in Germany, and by 1937 the number of Romanian students in the Third Reich already exceeded the number of 650 established by the 1935 agreement (e.g., there were 760 in 1937, 914 in 1940–1941, and more than 1000 in 1941–1942).

This clause was followed by other agreements designed to facilitate student exchanges, culminating with the signing, on 7 November 1942, of the Convention of Cultural Collaboration between the two countries, which also highlighted the importance conferred by the [Reich’s] propaganda machine to the student exchanges.

Consequently, whereas France had traditionally been the preferred study destination for most Romanians, after 1936 Germany started to lead in this respect, with approximately 60 percent of the Romanian students abroad studying in the Reich, and more than 90 percent after 1940.

[…]

Before 1933, Romanians were not among the national groups to receive substantial support from the Foundation. The number of fellowships for Romanian researchers increased in direct proportion with [the Third Reich’s] interest in imposing its economic and political hegemony in this country.

Consequently, after 1933 the number of Romanian fellows increased exponentially; the closer the two countries got (especially after the signing of the 1939 economic agreement, and in parallel with Romania’s radicalization toward the far right), the larger the number of the Romanian Humboldt fellows: four fellows in 1934–1935, six for each of the academic years 1935–1936, 1936–1937, and 1937–1938, seven in 1938–1939, and already ten in 1939–1940.

Moreover, after [Fascism’s] rise to power in Germany, they made it to the top: between 1933 and 1939, the Romanians were occupying the seventh place among the national groups receiving most Humboldt and Mitteleuropäischer Wirtschaftstag fellowships (seventy-one).